The Effectiveness of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program on the Mindfulness Skills and Cognitive Abilities of Blind and Visually Impaired Athletes

Mindfulness-based interventions are recognized as one of the third wave cognitive-behavioral therapies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based stress reduction program on increase mindfulness skills and cognitive abilities of blind and visually impaired athletes. The research method was quasi-experimental and its design was pretest-posttest with a control group. The statistical population consisted of all goalball players in East Azerbaijan province in 2019, from which 27 players were selected by purposive sampling and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The participants in the experimental group underwent mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention for 8 sessions of 120 minutes per week. Before and after the intervention, mindfulness inventory for sport and cognitive abilities questionnaires were completed. Data were analyzed using Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney U tests. The results showed that the mean scores related to mindfulness skills and cognitive abilities in the participants of the experimental group were significantly higher than the control group in the post-test stage. According to the results, it seems that MBSR is effective in improving the mindfulness skills and cognitive abilities of blind and visually impaired athletes. Therefore, it is recommended as a behavioral-cognitive intervention to improve the cognition and mindfulness of these athletes.